Free tool
Free salon website check
See your website the way a new client, Google, and ChatGPT see it. Enter your salon's address and get 17 checks in seconds: whether clients can book in one tap, whether search engines and AI assistants can read your details, what a first-time visitor sees, and the mobile and security basics. Each result comes with the fix.
Free, no signup. Works for any salon, spa, barbershop, or studio website.
Why it matters
Your website is where every search ends up
Clients rarely find a salon by typing its address. They search, ask a friend, or ask an AI assistant, and 45% of consumers now use AI tools to find local businesses. Each of those paths ends on your website or your profile, and the website is the one you fully control.
Roughly 296,000 US hair salons have no website at all. Many more have one that a phone visitor cannot book from, or that tells Google and ChatGPT very little. The checklist below is what we look for, in the order it costs you clients.
The checklist
The 17-point salon website checklist
Everything the check looks for, why it matters to a salon, and how to fix it on any site builder. Use it to review your own site by hand, or brief whoever builds it.
Booking
Can a new client book in one tap?
- 1
Online booking on the homepage
71% of salon and spa regulars have skipped booking an appointment because it was too hard to reach someone or use the online system, and up to 46% of booking demand arrives while the salon is closed. A booking button near the top of the page is a front desk that never closes.
How to fix it: Put a Book now button in the header that opens your booking page (Vagaro, GlossGenius, Square, Fresha, Boulevard, or whichever system you use), and repeat it near the top of the homepage.
- 2
Tap-to-call phone number
70% of local searches come from a phone. A number written as plain text has to be copied by hand; a tap-to-call link starts the call in one touch.
How to fix it: Make your phone number a tap-to-call link (a tel: link; most site builders call it a phone link) in the header and footer.
Google and AI search
Can Google and AI assistants find and understand you?
- 3
Open to search engines
46% of Google searches look for something nearby. A page that tells search engines to stay away, often a setting left over from when the site was being built, cannot show up for any of them.
How to fix it: Turn off the hide-from-search-engines setting in your site builder (it adds a noindex tag), and make sure your robots.txt file does not block the whole site.
- 4
A page title that says what you do
The page title is the blue headline Google shows for your salon. "Home" or a name alone tells a searcher nothing; a title such as "Balayage and color in Austin | Your salon" matches what near-me searchers type.
How to fix it: Set the homepage title to your main service, your town, and your salon's name, in about 50 to 60 characters.
- 5
A search snippet that sells the visit
Under the title, Google often shows the page's meta description. With 68% of Google searches now ending without a click, those two lines have to make the case for booking.
How to fix it: Write one or two sentences, about 150 characters, with your services, your area, and how to book.
- 6
Business details machines can read
45% of consumers now use AI tools to find local businesses. Structured data (schema.org markup for a hair salon, nail salon, day spa, or beauty salon) hands Google, ChatGPT, and Siri your name, address, phone, and hours without guesswork. It is the core of generative engine optimization for a local business.
How to fix it: Add LocalBusiness structured data of the right type (HairSalon, NailSalon, BeautySalon, DaySpa, or HealthAndBeautyBusiness) with your name, address, phone, opening hours, and booking link. Many site builders and SEO plugins have a business information setting that writes it for you.
- 7
Address and opening hours on the page
Clients deciding where to go check where you are and when you are open: 76% of people who search near me on a phone visit a business within a day. Your address and hours should read the same here as on your Google Business Profile.
How to fix it: Show your full street address (linked to Google Maps) and your opening hours in the footer of every page, written exactly as they appear on your Google Business Profile.
- 8
Words that AI assistants can read
Many AI assistants read a page's raw text and do not run its scripts. If your homepage's words appear only after scripts run, or live inside images, an assistant asked for a salon near your client sees an almost empty page, even when people see a full one.
How to fix it: Make sure your services, location, and booking details are real text on the page, not only inside images, sliders, or a booking widget. A normal text section in your site builder does this.
- 9
Open to AI search
ChatGPT search, Perplexity, and Microsoft Copilot read websites with their own crawlers, and 31% of consumers used ChatGPT for local recommendations in the past year. Blocking those crawlers in robots.txt removes your salon from their answers. Blocking OpenAI's training crawler, GPTBot, is a separate choice that does not take you out of ChatGPT search.
How to fix it: In robots.txt, allow OAI-SearchBot, ChatGPT-User, PerplexityBot, and Bingbot. Some site builders and hosting services block AI crawlers with a single setting; check that it is off, or limited to training crawlers.
Trust
Will a first-time client choose you?
- 10
Services and prices
What do you offer, and roughly what does it cost? Most new clients want that answered before they book. A visible service menu with starting prices answers it without a phone call, and the free salon price list template makes one in minutes.
How to fix it: Add a Services or Menu page with starting prices (for example, "from $65") and link it from the header.
- 11
Reviews on your site
93.9% of clients check Google and Yelp reviews before trying a new beauty provider. Showing your real reviews on your own site keeps that proof in front of them at the moment they decide. See reputation management.
How to fix it: Add a reviews section that shows your real Google reviews with a link to all of them, and ask every client for a review after their visit, not only the ones you expect to be happy.
- 12
Links to Instagram or TikTok
55% of Gen Z and 47% of Millennial clients say a salon's Instagram or TikTok matters when they choose where to book. Your feed is your portfolio, so link it where new clients can find it.
How to fix it: Add links to your Instagram and TikTok (and Facebook if you use it) in the header or footer.
Basics
Is the site secure, quick, and made for phones?
- 13
Secure connection (https)
Browsers mark pages without a valid security certificate as not secure, and some show a full-page warning before the site opens. A client about to pay a booking deposit will not get past it.
How to fix it: Turn on SSL in your site builder or hosting (it is free on Wix, Squarespace, Shopify, and most hosts) and redirect the http address to https.
- 14
Made for phones
80% of salon and spa guests want to book on their phone. Without a mobile viewport setting, a phone shows a shrunken desktop page that has to be pinched and zoomed.
How to fix it: Use a mobile-ready theme. Technically, the page needs a viewport meta tag set to the device width.
- 15
Quick to load
People searching on a phone, often between other things, leave pages that keep them waiting, and Google counts loading speed as part of page experience.
How to fix it: Compress large photos, remove apps and widgets you no longer use, and test the page with Google's free PageSpeed Insights.
- 16
A good look when your link is shared
Clients pass salons along by text and DM: 47% choose a salon from a friend's or family member's referral. Share tags (Open Graph) decide the photo and headline that appear with your link.
How to fix it: Set a share image (1200 by 630 pixels, a photo of your work or your space) and a share title in your site builder's social sharing settings.
- 17
Signs the site is kept up to date
An old copyright year in the footer, such as 2019, makes a new client wonder whether the prices and hours are still right.
How to fix it: Update the footer's copyright year (most builders can show the current year automatically), and check your prices and hours while you are there.
Run the check on your own site to see which of these it passes.
From check to fixed
One part of the digital side of your salon
The website is where SalonAI starts, not where it stops. SalonAI plans the whole digital and administrative side of a salon, and Founden builds and runs it, so what the check finds gets fixed and stays fixed.
Questions
The website check, answered
Is the website check free?
What does the check look at?
Why does a check say something is missing when my site has it?
Do you store my website or my results?
Does it check my Google Business Profile?
I do not have a website yet. Where do I start?
Can SalonAI fix what the check found?
Ready when you are
A website that books, gets found, and runs itself
SalonAI plans the digital side of your salon around the way you work: the website, online booking, local search, reviews, and client follow-ups. Founden builds and runs it.
Built with Founden. Review your setup and running costs before activation.